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Things I'm Finding Encouraging

2020-04-10 · list · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, heavy topic, self promotion

Amid omnidirectional worry about the COVID-19 pandemic, Hank lists five encouraging things: a chance to see employer-based health care as cruel, appreciation of others' work, renewed listening to expertise, the necessity of government, and acting as a society; he names his worries, keeps his faith in humanity, and launches a weekly podcast, COVID Sucks, People Don't.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Five encouraging things: health care, appreciation of work, expertise, government, acting as a society

  • ★★ Hank says his worry, as John eloquently put it, is omnidirectional, but some pieces are encouraging and talking about them feels more productive. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank says if America will ever recognize that getting health care through one's employer is arbitrary, cruel and ludicrous, this is the moment. — 00:00:24 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says maybe we are realizing how much work makes the world function, and hopes we will afterwards value others' work, such as teachers' and childcare workers'. (hedged) — 00:00:34
  • ★★★ Hank says we are, at least for now, listening to expertise; many who found it useful to call a regular person's gut feeling equal to decades of expertise are now glad it exists. — 00:00:53
  • ★★★ Hank says government, an underappreciated institution, is very necessary now, though not all did well; many who tried to cut it are suddenly very quiet. — 00:01:20
  • ★★★ Hank says bad government responses come not from government being bad but from years of attacks calling it unnecessary and a war on expertise that pushed experts out of public service. — 00:01:38
  • ★★★ Hank says America tells an individualist story of how things get done; it is empowering and does good, but it is not really true: we live in a society. — 00:02:08 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says he just realized we are in the middle of the largest collective intentional action ever taken. — 00:02:22 · collective action

00:02:34 — Worries: inequity, uneven economic fallout, nationalism, a later backlash against experts; faith in humanity intact

  • ★★ Hank stresses this is not good: it is bad, beyond the illness and loss of life, in the inequity of how it is hitting and will hit people. — 00:02:34 · health equity
  • ★★ Hank says the economic fallout is going to hit very unevenly. — 00:02:40
  • ★★ Hank worries that at a moment that calls for international cooperation, the pandemic will make us even more nationalistic. (hedged) — 00:02:45
  • ★★ Hank worries that later, dealing with the repercussions, messages that it wasn't as bad as experts said will work. (hedged) — 00:02:53
  • ★★ Hank says experts and their policies are right now saving thousands of lives a day. — 00:03:03
  • ★★ Hank says people with strong opinions and no expertise always get to pretend they were right, since their advice is never taken and no one runs the simulation their way, thank the Lord. (playful) — 00:03:10

00:03:27 — Launch of the weekly podcast COVID Sucks, People Don't; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says his worries go in every direction, but he does not have less faith in humanity than three months ago. — 00:03:27
  • ★★★ Hank announces a weekly, roughly 20-minute podcast, COVID Sucks, People Don't, talking with people trying to make things better, a project he started out of his own need. (hedged) — 00:03:32 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ The first episode interviews a man who this week (week of 6 April 2020) got his first injection of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, one of 45 people in that trial, and surprisingly chill about it. — 00:03:40 · vaccine, COVID-19 pandemic

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says the podcast is only on Spotify and Apple Podcasts so far and will reach other places soon. — video description
  • ★★ The description says those at fault for not taking this seriously or exploiting it are a tiny percentage; billions listening to experts are saving millions of lives. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: expert

Also: Projects: COVID Sucks, People Don't

Concepts: collective action · distrust of expertise · employer-sponsored health insurance · health equity · individualism · nationalism · vaccine

Places: United States

Events: COVID-19 pandemic

Only in the description or credits: Apple · Spotify

Also centred on expert: Can You Trust Mainstream Media? · Trust and Fire - Thoughts from the Smoke · you'll never know

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